Seattle-area prices jump nearly 5% from a year ago

James McCafferty, director of the Center for Economic and Business Research at Western Washington University, said wartime fuel prices and tariffs will push up food prices in the months to come.

Rising transportation and fertilizer prices could cause food prices to grow as farmers’ costs rise. (About one-third of global seaborne trade in fertilizers typically passes through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.)

“Over the next several months, these prices are going to ripple into almost all consumer products because they all can contain some form of petroleum, either in packaging, in the manufacturing process, (or) in transportation,” McCafferty said.